


They are as gentle as zephyrs blowing below the violet

by Katbelle



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Gen, His Last Vow Spoilers, Mary is selfish in her love, There are things John will never forgive Mary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:31:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katbelle/pseuds/Katbelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary Watson imagines a world where the shooting in Magnussen's office had a different outcome. It's not necessarily a better world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They are as gentle as zephyrs blowing below the violet

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a happy piece, but there's no Mary bashing. Please refrain from that. Mary is a selfish character who has many flaws, but that makes her all the more interesting. This story includes the headcanon that Mary is BBC!Sebastian Moran.

**They are as gentle as zephyrs blowing below the violet**

 

There are moments, _days_ , after that September night when Mary Watson tries to imagine a world where everything didn't go so wrong so fast.

***

There is a world in which Sherlock Holmes has run out of miracles to grant his dear friend John and _that_ is the one miracle he gave Mary.

***

Mary rushes into the hospital in the early hours of next morning. She has already got rid of the clothes and the gun. The clothes, ditched in various London dumpsters piece by piece, no one will ever suspect anything or make a connection. The gun — at the bottom of the Thames, where no one will find it and even if they will, it will be of no help. There is nothing that could connect her to the shooting, nothing except Magnussen and so he will have to be dealt with, sooner or later.

Mary Watson rushes into the hospital in plain civilian clothing, in a little knitted blue sweater. There is a tiny part of her, a very tiny and very human part of her, that worries Sherlock Holmes might have survived. It was not, after all, a kill shot. No, correction: it was not a kill-on-the-spot shot and Mary is well capable of those. No, it was a precise shot to incapacitate him. To make him bleed. To allow John to come to Sherlock's aid, to make him feel like he did all he could. Mary — Mary, well, Mary even called an ambulance. John will never know that she did it. John will never know that it was _Mary_ who gave his best friend a fighting chance at life.

A chance, that's all. But as she rushes into the hospital Mary suddenly realises that Sherlock Holmes was known for seizing mere chances.

John is sitting on an uncomfortable plastic hospital chair with his head bowed. He doesn't ever see her approach, or sit next to him. He does feel her put her hand on his shoulder. He looks up at her; she can tell he's been crying, his eyes are red and puffed.

"He's dead," he says. He doesn't say who. 

He doesn't have to.

***

He was still alive when he was brought in, John tells her and the surgeon confirms. Sherlock Holmes died on an operating table and the attempts to resuscitate him failed. He died in a hospital.

Lots of people die in hospitals, Mary tells herself. People die, that's what they do.

John is still crying when she helps him into their car and drives him home.

***

I could have shot to kill him instantly but I didn't, Mary tells herself. He had a chance.

But John doesn't know that and he doesn't stop crying.

***

It's all over the news the next day. In every newspaper, on every channel. Great coverage, everywhere except for Magnussen's little business. His newspapers make only a brief note of the death of the famous detective.

Janine calls her after noon. Mary can tell she's been crying too.

"He lied to me," Janine says. "He dated me to get into my boss' office. He even _proposed_ to me to get inside. I shouldn't have let him in."

"You didn't know," Mary says because that's true. Janine didn't know. Janine didn't know Mary herself only befriended her to get into her boss' office. Janine had the worst luck with the people she decided to trust.

"I was going to tell the papers how he fooled me," Janine sniffs. "But under these circumstances..."

Yes. Under these circumstances, considering the fact that the great Sherlock Holmes is tragically dead, no one would be interested.

"I'm so sorry, Janine."

That's also true. Mary is sorry. Sorry it turned out this way. It wasn't supposed to be so messy.

***

John stops crying on the fourth day. He schools himself and gets dressed. He didn't bother before so it piques Mary's interest.

"You're dressed," she notes.

John nods. "Lestrade is coming over. To ask--to ask about--"

Ah. About the night of the murder. John is the last person the police is talking to. From Janine Mary knows they've already questioned Magnussen's staff and Magnussen himself. The staff didn't know anything and Magnussen didn't tell them a thing, like Mary suspected. He's going to blackmail her with that knowledge. Well, not for long.

"Should I make tea?"

John smiles with gratitude. "That would be lovely."

She makes them tea and she brings it to the living room where John is sitting on their sofa and Greg Lestrade stands on the other side of the coffee table, opposite John. Mary sits down next to John and takes his hand. He squeezes it in gratitude.

"And you didn't see anyone coming out? Anything suspicious?"

John shakes his head. "No, nothing. I didn't even hear anything."

"Sherlock, he didn't call you? Didn't raise alarm? Nothing?"

"No. I only went upstairs because he's been gone so long and wasn't answering me. If I'd got there sooner--"

Mary presses his hand. He looks at her with a faint smile. He thinks it's comfort. It is comfort, in a way. She means to tell him, _it wouldn't have mattered. I'm a great sharpshooter, I never miss. The only thing that'd have happened is that you would know who I am and I'd have lost you._

"But there is something," John says. " _Clair-de-la-lune_. The perfume. Sherlock said he smelled them in the office, before he--before--"

John voice breaks and Lestrade looks at him half-pityingly. He notes the name of the perfume and then excuses himself, leaving the Watsons alone. John's shoulders slump and he puts a hand over his eyes, rubs his forehead tiredly.

"Why would anyone do that?" he asks quietly.

"I don't know," Mary answers and tries to convince herself she means it.

***

There is a note waiting for them one day.

"I'm sorry for your loss," John reads it out loud. "From Cam. Who's Cam? They sent a note for the wedding too, right?"

"Just an old friend," Mary says, waving her hand dismissively. "He must have heard on the news. Everyone knows you two were--close."

"Yeah." John tries to give a half-smiles and folds the note. "How nice of him."

***

Mary gets rid of the _Clair-de-la-lune_ bottle the day before the funeral. She puts a bottle of Arden's _5th Avenue_ in its place on the bathroom counter.

"What happened to the moon bottle?" John asks in the evening. His black suit is already laid out. His eyes are still red and puffy, have been so since the hospital, but she hasn't seen him actively crying for almost two days now.

"I heard what you told Greg Lestrade," she says slowly. "That whoever--did this--was also using--" She takes a deep breath. "I got rid of it. I don't want to make it any more painful for you."

He walks into the bathroom and embraces her from behind, wraps his arms around her middle, rests his hands over her navel, where their child is growing, and buries his face in her neck. She feels him place a kiss on her should and then she feels his tears over the kiss, burning.

"Thank you," he whispers and Mary's stomach drops.

***

John had told her about the last funeral, the fake one. The one after The Fall, capital letters, as John had dubbed the events from three years prior. It was a quiet ceremony, if you discount the reporters, hungry vultures waiting for scoop, wanting to see the coffin of a disgraced detective who took his own life. Sherlock's parents didn't attend that previous one, only John and Mrs. Hudson. And Mycroft, John admitted once, Mycroft had come too, with a slightly bored expression. He stood at the fringes and kept to himself, and left as quickly as he came.

Mycroft is here too, this time. He stands next to his mother, an older woman, sobbing into her husband's sleeve. Mr. Holmes — a lovely-looking man, lots of wrinkles on his face, he must have smiled a lot back in the day. And Mycroft, seemingly stony-faced on the first sight, an emotionless man gripping the handle of his umbrella so tightly that his knuckles have gone white. But if one's eyes should linger on Mycroft's face, they would notice that he's crying, that tears are falling from his eyes without him noticing.

And there are other people too. Greg Lestrade with some other people from the police, a man Mary knows as Anderson and a curly-haired woman. Mrs. Hudson, of course. Molly Hooper, without her fiancé. Bill Wiggins, the junkie they've brought to St. Bart's once. Janine. Dear God, even Janine is here.

There are countless others, of course, some of whom John names as former clients. People whose lives they've saved. And reporters. This time it's the funeral of a famous detective who was brutally murdered, arguably it makes for even better news that the last Holmes funeral story they've had.

She and John make rounds around people, giving and receiving condolences, much more of the latter as John was always seen as sort of a permanent fixture to Sherlock. His soulmate, as Anderson puts it when he shakes John's hand. John seems a tad affronted at that but it's true enough; he was certainly Sherlock's soulmate, the better part of him. That much Mary knows. That much Sherlock once admitted himself.

John hugs Mrs. Hudson and tells her he will soon come to Baker Street. Mary hugs her too, and then Mrs. Hudson is gone, gone to a shiny black car that brought her to the cemetery. One of Mycroft's, Mary thinks.

"Mrs. Holmes," John says as he takes Sherlock's mother's hand delicately in his, "we've never met properly--"

"Oh, I know, Sherlock has told me all about you." Mrs. Holmes smiles sadly and squeezes John's hand. "I think I need to thank you."

John blink, baffled. "Me?"

"You were his friend, and he never had many friends. These past few years--you made him happy. And there's nothing more a mother can want, just to see her son happy."

John sets his jaws, clenches his teeth, just like he does when he's reached a decision, when he's sure of something. "We will find out, I will find out who that was, I can promise you that--"

"I know," Mrs. Holmes repeats and looks to her left. Over there, by the grave, stands Mycroft Holmes. But he doesn't look like the Mycroft Mary has come to know; his posture is slumped, he is hiding his face in his hands, his shoulders are shaking.

Mycroft is crying. No, Mycroft is _weeping_ , overwhelmed and unable to stop, and that — more than all the crying John's done ever since the hospital — is what hits Mary and takes her breath away. John handled it badly before but she didn't have _her_ before. 

She never thought someone else's heart could be broken by the death of Sherlock Holmes.

***

The new headstone is different than the last one. This one was chosen by Sherlock's parents and brother, without any input from the deceased himself. 

It's a week after the funeral. They've come to bring flowers and there it is, standing, barely visible in the grass. It's not as tall as the last one, more like a plate-stone laid on the ground. There are dates there, and a silly little epitaph. _A good many of us may wither before east wind's blast_. It's silly. It has to mean something. With Sherlock, everything means something. Is it a clue, a clue to who his killer is? Could he be so clever even from beyond his grave?

But it's not the epitaph that catches John's eye. It's the name.

_William Sherlock Scott Holmes_

"'Sherlock' wasn't even his first name," John whispers and his face twists with agony. It occurs to him how much he didn't know about his best friend.

It occurs to Mary that John knows nothing about her either.

***

At one of her doctor's appointments she is told they're expecting a girl. She tells John, who couldn't make it with her this time. John looks--he looks disappointed.

"I thought--" he murmurs. "If it was a boy, that perhaps--Sherlock--"

It's been a month. John still cries sometimes, when something catches his eyes and reminds him of a case long closed or the Baker St. apartment, but it's rarer and rarer with every passing day. Mary thought he was going to be a mess, judging from what he went through the last time Sherlock Holmes died. But John is handling it surprisingly well.

It's been a month. Mary thinks it's okay to say, "That would not be a good first name. But maybe as second?"

John smiles faintly and says she's right, a boy named Sherlock would probably get bullied a lot. Mary is grateful her child is a girl so they won't have any trouble.

***

There is a pendrive with initials A. G. R. A. scribbled on it. She keeps it hidden, she keeps it as insurance. Everything about her is there, everything about who she was, about what she once did. All the things John could excuse and the one thing he would never.

Moriarty.

If there was ever a scale of bad things that John Watson had, being a right-hand woman and personal sharpshooter of James Moriarty was the greatest evil imaginable. That is the one thing he would never forgive her for. She would lose him.

And that, that is never going to happen. John will never know. She will make sure of that. There is nothing that she wouldn't do to make sure of that.

***

For that, Charles Augustus Magnussen needs to disappear.

***

One day John comes home with a newspaper in hand and a guilty look on his face. Mary knows something's up and she feels dread flood her.

John comes into their kitchen, takes a breath and blurts out, "I've got a case."

He blushes when he says that, then blushes even more at the sight of Mary's jaw hanging open. She can't help it; she's been expecting him to say something vastly different and so an announcement that he hasn't given up on his detective days is surprising.

"A banker has gone missing." John hands her the newspaper. "His brother came around Baker Street, asking for help."

"He surely must know that Sherlock is--" Mary trails off. It's been two months but she's not sure.

John takes another breath. "He knows alright. But I told him I could look into it."

"On your own?" Mary asks, incredulous, before she manages to bite her tongue. She shouldn't sound so dubious only--John is not the most observant or the cleverest of people. He's not _Sherlock_.

"No!" John laughs. "I'll have help."

Mary raises her brow. "Greg Lestrade? Or Molly Hooper?"

John waits a beat before answering, "... Yeah, Molly Hooper."

It's clear that he doesn't mean Molly Hooper but Mary won't be pressing the issue today. John will tell her sooner or later, excited for the first time in two months. He needs a hobby, Mary decides, and if attempting to solve crimes is what he needs to be truly happy, let it be.

Mary has her own plans to make.

***

It's only convenient that John's been invited to visit the Holmeses for the second day of Christmas. Mary has been invited too, of course, but she has other plans. She tells John as much, reminds him of her promise to visit Janine before Christmas is over. She can't break her promise, not with what has happened and how Janine suffered too, Janine needs a friend.

John understands friendship better than anyone Mary knows so he understands what she means. Still, he cannot bring himself to phone the Holmeses and tell them he won't be coming. He instinctively knows that Sherlock's parents are counting on him to be there, a stand-in for their dead son, the second-best alternative. 

She tells John that as well, and so John takes their car and goes to visit Mr. and Mrs. Holmes while Mary goes on to have her dinner with Janine.

Janine is frustrated and unhappy with her boss, unhappy with her job and after a few glasses of wine she gladly tells Mary all about that. At the end of the dinner date, Mary knows exactly what Magnussen will be doing till New Year's and how the security of his office has been upgraded. It's nothing fancy and still not a match for Mary's skill. She got in there once — and even Sherlock Holmes didn't figure out that way in — she can do it again.

She comes back home satisfied. John comes back alarmed.

"I think Mycroft is going mad."

"What?" Mary asks. She hands John a cup of tea and sits him on their sofa, takes the other one and seats herself next to him, and listens attentively.

"Sherlock's de--Sherlock-- _It_ broke him. He seems fine, but I can tell he's not. He's trying to solve this case, THE case. He knows that Magnussen is lying, he must be lying. He was with Sherlock in the room so he saw the shooter as well."

"But he won't say anything."

John's hand hits the surface of the coffee table. "Exactly! And Mycroft knows it, and he's not happy. Soon he will snap and he has ways, _many_ ways, to make Magnussen talk."

Mary only nods and drinks her tea.

***

Botulinum is perhaps not the most elegant solution — and not her first choice — but it is a foolproof one. 

There is the added bonus of delicious irony, of course.

***

The news of Charles Augustus Magnussen's death rattles John less than she was expecting. He seems almost--excited. He really is turning into Sherlock Holmes, Mary thinks. In the past month he's solved five cases, which is five more than she was expecting. She is proud of him, sure. Not alarmed, though. To solve her case, THE case, it would truly take Sherlock Holmes. Or Magnussen's help and he will not be providing that to anyone ever again.

Napoleon of blackmail has found his Waterloo.

"I've got to go," John tells her, excited, before kissing her cheek, bending to place a kiss at her extended stomach, and storming out of the house.

***

They don't talk about Magnussen ever again. While John is gone, Mary burns the pendrive in their fireplace. When the plastic and metal is done melting, she breathes out in relief. It's gone. It's over.

No one will ever know, now.

***

They talk baby names, one January evening. They are most certainly having a girl and Mary shyly says, "Irene. Maybe Irene."

John starts laughing. He laughs and laughs, and his laugh turns hysterical and then John is not laughing anymore, he's just crying, sobbing ugly, wiping at his eyes, angry that the wetness just doesn't want to disappear.

He hasn't had such a fit in a few months. When Mary asks what was it about, John tells her about a woman, The Woman, capital letters again, and concludes with, "Irene is not a great name."

Mary nods and doesn't show that it hurt her, just a bit. She likes that name. Her grandmother was named Irene. Mary thought that — even though Moriarty is gone and Magnussen is gone and the pendrive is gone — she could keep a part of that old life with her. Not everything about it was bad.

They settle on Violet, in the end. Violet Watson sounds nice and is meaningless enough.

***

"I want to introduce you to someone," John says in February. 

He looks healthy. He looks happy, to be honest. He's taken to putting his hand on her belly every time he stands by her. He's been taking more and more cases recently, and spending less and less time at the surgery. He solved almost all of them. Their finances aren't suffering because of that. Perhaps John is better at this detective thing than Mary assumed he was.

John takes her to Baker Street, to 221B. Mrs. Hudson hugs her on the spot and complains that she hasn't seen her in a long time. John ushers her upstairs after Mrs. Hudson promises to have tea and biscuits up in no time. They enter Sherlock's old apartment and Mary can instantly tell that nothing has changed. It's almost like time has stopped in this place. There's even a tall man sitting in Sherlock's chair. He almost looks familiar.

"Doctor Watson!" the man says and leaps off the chair. "And Mrs. Watson, hello."

"Hello?" Mary says uncertainly. Looks at John, who winks encouragingly. "Sorry. Have we met?"

"Once, yeah." The man smiles. "I'm Bill. Bill Wiggins."

Mary shakes the man's hand, trying to place the name. Bill Wiggins. The junkie whose arm John sprained. The one they brought to Bart's along with Sherlock, all those months ago. The one who impressed even Sherlock with his observation skills.

But that man was dirty, homeless and high. This one was clean-cut, wearing a nice suit, smiling cheekily and most definitely clean. Mary looks at John again, who grins.

"My crime-solving assistant."

Ah. _Ah._ John has taken in Sherlock's protégé. He took him in, helped him get clean and started running around London with him. No wonder he solved so many cases. No wonder he seemed so _happy_. It was almost as if nothing changed.

"You're the new Sherlock?" Mary asks and means it as a joke. It doesn't work. John's face is twisted by a pained/angry expression and Bill squints, cocks his head and stares at her. She made a mistake, she knows it. "Sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"It's fine, Mrs. Watson," Billy says. "I'm trying to be, but the shoes to fill are big."

"I'm glad you're clean, Billy."

Billy smiles at that. "Mr. Holmes told me that I can always count on Doctor Watson. And he was bloody right. I don't know how I could ever repay him."

"I'm sure you'll think of something," John says and it sounds non-committal, but Mary doesn't miss the look that passes between the two men.

***

Mary gives birth to a healthy baby girl in late March. Violet Watson is perfect in every way, with tiny fingers and wisps of blond hair and John's eyes. She is the most amazing thing Mary has ever seen, and is worth everything Mary has ever done.

People come to see her in the hospital. Greg Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson. Molly Hooper pops in with a giant teddy bear and a smile. They're all moving on. The investigation into the murder of Sherlock Holmes was closed ages ago due to lack of evidence, and now the investigation into the murder of Charles Augustus Magnussen is dying as well.

All is well.

"She will grow up to look like you."

Mary raises her head at the sound of Mycroft's voice.

"How do you--"

"She already does." 

Mary smiles at that. Then she barely stifles a gasp when Mycroft walks into the room. Mary may not know Mycroft well, but she's heard plenty. The man who stands in front of her looks nothing like the Mycroft John is fond of describing after a glass of wine. This man clearly hasn't shaved in a long time, his hair is unkempt, his clothes wrinkled. There are bags under his eyes and he looks like he hasn't slept in days. Or eaten, Mary notes, based on how loosely the wrinkled clothes hang on his frame.

Mycroft Holmes has definitely gone mad.

"I believe congratulations are in order, Mrs. Holmes." Mycroft bows his head. "What did you call her?"

"Violet. We called her Violet."

"Interesting," Mycroft says. "And entirely coincidental. But our mother's named Violet."

Mary doesn't need to ask whose mother Mycroft is referring to. Suddenly she doesn't like the name anymore.

***

It's not a bang that ends her world but a mere whimper, a whimper of a man long dead, whose look of surprise will be forever etched into her memory.

***

"We've been working on the case," John tells her one day. Violet is a fussy child, always demanding attention, always overactive, even at such a young age. Mary can't keep up with her.

"Sorry, love. What case?"

John takes Violet from her and the baby girl immediately stops crying. It's almost as if she liked John better. As if she knew there was something off about her mother.

"You know," John says and, prompted by Mary's raised brow, elaborates, "THE case."

THE case. The murder of Sherlock Holmes case. Mary swallows.

"Yes?" she asks. "Any luck?"

"Billy and I have a few ideas," John says. "But it's mostly Mycroft who's been doing the digging."

"Mycroft. Mycroft?"

John shrugs. "It _was_ his brother." He shushes Violet. "He thinks he's onto something. Found something, a connection--between Sherlock and Magnussen's death."

"Really? And what is that?"

John smiles, but that smile is not one of his usual ones. This one is cold, cold with the fury if its owner. It terrifies her. For the first time it occurs to Mary that John has been to war, that John has once killed a man in cold blood, just to protect Sherlock Holmes.

She briefly wonders if Sherlock would be able to do the same for John and decides that no, unlikely.

"Moriarty. Apparently Magnussen's killer was a fan."

***

And then, one day, out of the blue, the face of Jim Moriarty appears on every screen in Britain.

And like that Mary realises that there is someone who knows, that she's not alone with the secret of her past.

***

Mycroft Holmes is a smart man and Mary was careless. If he pieced together Moriarty, it won't take long before he finds out the whole truth. That is unacceptable. Mary worked too hard to keep what she has to allow that.

***

She would like to claim that the death of Mycroft Holmes was an accident. They do happen, after all, even to the best of men.

***

John takes it hard. He and Mycroft weren't friends exactly, but they shared a common passion and a common goal — Sherlock. Without Mycroft's help John's little investigation will lead nowhere. And that saddens John more than he knows how to phrase.

Billy Wiggins stares at her during the funeral, but Mary doesn't pay attention to him. She is here with her husband and her daughter, and she is standing next to Mr. and Mrs. Holmes. Mrs. Holmes is not crying this time; she is too stunned to cry.

Perhaps Mary ought to feel remorseful about that. But she doesn't feel a thing. She's killed so many people at the service of others, what are a few more at the service of her own happiness?

***

"He was close, that's why he died!"

The police ruled the death of Mycroft Holmes an unfortunate accident. John, more paranoid than ever, doesn't believe that.

Mary wants to tell him that he's right.

***

Realistically, she knows it cannot last. Bill Wiggins — while not Sherlock Holmes — is smart enough to piece together the puzzle. Who knows if Mycroft didn't leave clues lying around. Perhaps he knew. Perhaps even Sherlock knew and he'll help solve his own case from beyond grave. And there is someone who knows. Information can always be obtained, it's just the matter of the right price.

Realistically, Mary Watson knows the day is coming. No one can outrun their past forever.

*** 

Mary Watson. Does she even have any right to that name?

***

But when she comes home one day, and there's a bottle of _Clair-de-la-lune_ standing on the coffee table, on a note with the word 'murderer' scribbled in John's handwriting, it still comes as a surprise.

***

Perhaps she should have brought her case to Sherlock Holmes in the first place.


End file.
